


Forgiveness

by monogramsalarm



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 10:25:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16532789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monogramsalarm/pseuds/monogramsalarm
Summary: Taako really wanted to forgive Lucretia. After all, she was still family. Spending a century with someone made a bond unlike any other. But her actions held a lot of weight, especially, say, erasing his entire sister from existence. He needed to talk to her. But he couldn't bring himself to see her on his own.





	Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty short, but I've been sitting on it for almost a week and wanted to get it out there! I hope you enjoy!

“You’re going to have to face her sometime.” Lup’s voice came over Taako’s stone of farspeech as he sat on the living room floor, painting his toenails. “You can’t just ignore Lucretia for the rest of your life.” He huffed in annoyance as he shifted his position and nudged the stone farther away from the open bottle of nail polish.

"I will, Lulu. I’m just… Not ready to see her yet.” He dipped the brush back into the bottle to let the coat dry. “Maybe soon.” His voice went quiet.

“I know why you’re angry, and honestly you have more of a right to be upset at her than I do. But she’s family, Taako.” He scoffed and she acted like she didn’t hear him, continuing regardless of whether or not he was still listening. “You need to tell her why you haven’t talked to her since you two worked together to save the world. She at least deserves that, right?” Lup reasoned, knowing he wouldn’t have a way to refute it without being irrational.

“I guess,” Taako mumbled, shifting to paint the nails on his other foot. “You’re gonna set up a meeting with her either way.”

“Yeeeup!” Lup chimed in. “You know how we’re gonna have lunch together tomorrow?” His eyes narrowed at his stone of farspeech, despite the fact that Lup wasn’t in the room with him. “Well, it’s going to be you and Lucy instead us the two of us.”

“God, I knew you’d pull this shit.” Taako rubbed his eyes from the stress of even thinking about the situation, not caring about the black smudges he’d have underneath them. “So, I have to talk to Lucretia  _ and  _ be nice to her because we’re going to be in a public place?”

“No, she’s meeting you at your place.” Lup paused before her voice grew softer. “I really think it’ll be good for you, Taako. I know you  _ want  _ to forgive her.” Taako didn’t respond, staring down at the paint drying on his nails. He remained silent, not knowing what to say to that. Eventually, Lup sighed deeply, knowing that she wasn’t going to get anywhere with him. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Koko. Love you.” Lup hung up, leaving Taako alone with his thoughts. She was right. He wanted to forgive her, but there was so much in the way. So many things he needed to tell her first.

The next afternoon, a soft knock interrupted Taako’s cooking. He took a deep breath to prepare himself, then called out. “The door’s unlocked!” Letting her know she could let herself in was safer than him opening the door, feeling too many emotions to handle, and blowing up at her then and there. It wasn’t the time yet, he needed to ease into it. Lucretia came into the kitchen, bottle of wine in hand, and waved almost shyly, not sure where they stood.

“I, uh… I brought this to go with lunch. I know you prefer white to red wine.” She set the bottle down on the table. Taako dished up their salad and pasta, not saying a word as they sat down together. He chewed thoughtfully, trying to think of the right way to say something, anything without coming off too strong. The room was painfully quiet and neither of them could come up with the right thing to say. Taako remained silent and Lucretia’s attempts at lighthearted conversation fell flat. Upon finishing their meal, Taako took a long drink of wine, squeezing his eyes shut so he didn’t have to see her expression.

“You know I’m upset. It’s kind of obvious.” He started, then shook his head and tried again. “It’s not like I’m mad for no reason, you completely—“ Taako stopped himself from getting too heated too quickly, taking another sip from his glass. “I’m angry, Lucretia,” he stated simply. “I get what you were trying to do, but jesus, at what cost? I have never, couldn’t, w-would never even think of doing…” He stuttered, not being able to get his thoughts out coherently. Taako sighed deeply, holding his head in his hands. “Why? I-I understand that you wanted to do this on your own, thinking that you could fix things if the threat of losing us wasn’t looming over you. But you took things from us. You took our lives, our home, our  _ memories _ and for what? So you had a chance of doing what only you thought was right for this world?” He lifted his head, not caring how Lucretia was taking it at that moment.

“Taako, I am so sorry.” Lucretia murmured softly. She wasn’t trying to interrupt him, only to break up some of the tension. But he wasn’t going to have that be the end of the conversation.

“Yeah, you fucking should be, Luce!” Taako shook his head. “Lup was  _ gone _ . Not just missing or dead like we’d thought. You erased my sister completely out of existence. That’s, fuck, that’s something I really can’t handle.” He lowered his head back into his hands. “Do whatever you want to me; isolate me, take away my cooking skills, hell, you can take every memory I have aside from the memory of her! Just don’t fucking do anything to Lup.” His body trembled with pent up rage. “Do you know how much it  _ hurts  _ to realize you went a decade without the person you loved more than anything? Every day, I feel awful that I didn’t do more to help Lup out of the umbrastaff. I  _ couldn’t _ , because what you did to us, and it just… It fucking kills me!” His voice cracked and he paused, taking a moment to catch his breath and regain his composure. Lucretia remained quiet as he tried to calm down. She wasn’t going to interrupt him; he needed this and she needed to let him get everything out.

“It, uh… It’s not just about Lup.” Taako finally spoke up and cleared his throat. “I trusted you. You’re family too, as much as I hate to admit it.” He tried so hard to crack a smile, to relieve some of the tension he’d created. “The fact that you erased almost everything about us without a second thought is so inexcusable. I-I feel like no matter how close I get to you, there’s going to be a chance that you’ll do it again. Why wouldn’t you? If the Lucy I thought was my little sister was capable of something like that, then you could absolutely turn again.” Taako watched a tear he didn’t know had welled up in his eyes fall onto the table in front of him. He wiped his eyes, ducking his head down. “I don’t want to be hurt by you again, Lucretia. That’s why I couldn’t forgive you.” His eyes squeezed shut again and they sat in silence as they both collected their thoughts. Taako felt her place her hands on top of his and his eyes fluttered open, looking in her direction.

“I know you can’t trust me. I did something unforgivable and I… I gave up everything to do so. I gave up the only family I can remember loving, I lost any chance of having the same relationship with any one of you. It was stupid a-and selfish of me to try and take control of all of your lives like that.” Lucretia chewed on her lip. “I want you to know how sorry I am and if you never forgive me, I understand. I’m okay with that, I don’t want to force you to be okay with what I’ve done.” She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. “I love you and I don’t expect anything from you.” Taako paused for a moment before taking her hands in his.

“I love you too, Lucretia,” he finally looked her in the eyes. “I think… I think I’ll be able to forgive you. Maybe not today, but I know I will be. Soon. Can you live with that?” He asked quietly, unsure of what her response would be.

“That’s more than I’d hoped for, Taako.” Her mouth quirked up into a small smile, her eyes welling up with tears. A small droplet streaked down her cheek and Taako wiped it away.

“Geez, Luce, you’re gonna make me cry too.” Taako laughed through his own tears. “Let’s finish this bottle and cry it out, okay?” He poured more wine into his glass, downing the whole thing in one gulp. Lucretia followed suit, the pair finishing off the bottle and moving to the living room to continue the conversation somewhere more comfortable. They were siblings once, and both of them wanted to be again. It was just going to take a lot of work, and a hell of a lot of forgiveness. But they knew it would be worth it in the long run.

Taako didn’t forgive her that day, or the day after that. He was cordial towards her, and they both knew he didn’t hate her anymore. But erasing his sister from existence was more than he could handle at the time. It wasn’t until that next Candlenights that he sent her a gift with a letter that contained a single sentence: “I forgive you, Lucretia.”


End file.
